My Reflections:

Today we planned to surprise the boys with a trip to an amusement park.  Tickets have already been purchased, two nights have been reserved in a hotel, J’s taken the time off work.

In light of the present circumstances though, it seems strange to carry through with our plans. Really, how can we just up and go in light of Papa’s diagnosis and impending surgery?

He has brain cancer, people!

Who goes to an amusement park to have fun when they find out their loved one has brain cancer?!

Yet the alternative of staying back and all sitting around and worrying and staring at each other doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense either.  We know that’s not what Papa wants for us… or himself.  After all, who wants people just sitting around staring at and worrying about them? So I half-heartedly agree we should go.  I don’t want to disappoint the boys.  Life needs to continue on even though I’d like to push the pause button.  J, the boys and I leave as planned.

The boys are so very excited when they discover where we’re going.  And I try my best to be engaged and present in the moment, to truly enjoy it.  But try as I might, there’s a lump in my throat; my head aches and my heart does too.  I am helpless to do anything to make anything better.  There is no fix.  It just is what it is, and we won’t know fully what “it” is until the surgery is behind us and the biopsy report is given.  And in this moment, I feel in some strange sort of limbo, on the outside looking in, as my boys smile and giggle and run from ride to ride.

Where has “life as usual” gone?

Will we ever find it again?

Smiles prove that it was a good decision to come.